1. When I use HDMI to connect to two different LED tvs text looks terrible. I recently switched from HDMI to VGA and the differnce was outstanding. I'm pretty sure this is down to the TV not having a setting to change to to "PC input", but I have to know if other people have this issue when using monitors and HDMI.

2. How important is the response time of pixels. 6ms v 2ms. I really hate judder when watching movies, but to the best of my knowledge only a 120htz tv is going to to help with that, or will a faster response time help? I was looking at a "super smooth" TV in walmart a few weeks back the image look amazing. Almost looked like I was watching a movie at 120fps.

Are you sure you set the resolution correctly to what your TV supports?
TVs also tend to have a lot of overblown settings values. Try playing with the TV options: e.g. lowering sharpness, etc.

5ms vs 2ms is more common, at least for monitors and there's definitely a slight advantage when you're using a 2ms monitor for gaming.
This will not help with the stuttering/juddering you see in movies. A high hertz TV will do the job. It will make the panning scenes, etc, look smoother.
Though you can also get rid of them via your media player.

I use Media Player Classic Home Cinema with madVR, and there's an option called Smooth Motion which will reduce the juddering in panning scenes, etc.
It's not perfect, but it helps. If you need something more robust that will make those scenes smooth, then look at Smooth Video Project.
The results are amazing and it eliminates the judders entirely. But you might get artifacts depending on your settings and video source.

I've been over my TV issues on other forums and a little on here. Using the VGA input the image is perfect, it appears that the only way I can tell my TV that the input is from a PC is to use the VGA. When I switch it over to HDMI on a couple of TVs I use, both TVs treat it as if it's something other than a PC input, making the general quality of text and other things just look terrible (Anyone know why that is?). I know that better TVs have options to tell the TV the signal that's been inputted is from a PC however the two I own (one of which is a sony barvia) do not have that option.

Only been able to use VGA leads to me not been able to play blurays which is ridiculous. So I think it's time I switch to a 27" monitor from my 26" TV.

120htz monitors almost double the price of a 60htz so that's going to be out of the question. I'd love to get a higher res TV too, 1440 instead of 1080 but that almost doubles the price as well. So I think I'm just going to flick through some well rated 1080/60htz monitors and stick with that for now. Maybe when 4k becomes more popular 1440 monitors will become the norm and the price will drop.

Is there a particular reason why you apparently decided to go with VA panels?

"Normally if given a choice between doing something and nothing, I’d choose to do nothing. But I would do something if it helps someone else do nothing. I’d work all night if it meant nothing got done."
-Ron Swanson

"I shall be a good politician, even if it kills me. Or if it kills anyone else for that matter. "
-Mark Antony

I spent about 6 hours the other night looking at monitors. I did notice this was VA and not ISP, but from my research I think I'll be fine with a VA. The one thing that drives me crazy about my current TV that I use for a monitor is the horrific contrast ratio, which I read cheap ISP panels are prone to?

Anyway I ended up going with the BenQ, has a really good static contrast ratio and the only bad thing I read about it was that it had bad ghosting. I'm not a gamer as such so I don't think it's going to be an issue.

Neither is "better" in an absolute way. They are different technologies that address different issues.

I'm pretty sure I remember you from another thread where you talked about an HDTV for your PC and another one in your bedroom. And described some of the differences you observed between them. What you perfectly described in doing so where the differences between SPVA (a type of VA panel) and HIPS (a type of IPS panel) panels used in HDTVs. The most noticeable being the poor viewing angles on VA (the "flashlight effect" where the edges appear dimmer than the center at a distance) and poor black levels on IPS (particularly noticeable when the lights are off). The cheaper VA panels that monitors have to use are also prone to ghosting like you mentioned from high response times, poor color accuracy, and narrow color gamuts. If the monitor employs RTC (response time correction) to try and reduce the ghosting effect input lag will be increased as a result. This is A/V hardware in a nutshell. Virtually every change made to fix an issue causes some other issue. Tradeoffs.

As far as contrast ratios go they are much higher on a VA panel. The white levels are about the same but the black levels are much lower. Which boosts static contrast ratio from about 750-1250 for IPS panels to about 2500-5000 for VA panels. For monitors it tends to be closer to the 2500 side as you can image. And in the <$800 pricerange for IPS monitors they tend to be closer to 750. In any given price range VA panels usually have about 1/3 of the black level (measured in brightness so lower is better) and therefore 3 times the contrast ratio of competing IPS displays.

I haven't had time to read this thread or any of your other recent A/V threads. I'll do that at some point. I just wanted to give you this answer in the meantime.

"Normally if given a choice between doing something and nothing, I’d choose to do nothing. But I would do something if it helps someone else do nothing. I’d work all night if it meant nothing got done."
-Ron Swanson

"I shall be a good politician, even if it kills me. Or if it kills anyone else for that matter. "
-Mark Antony

Yeah I think we came to the conclusion that my 26" TV I'm currently using is a ISP panel. The other TV is an older sony bravia (KDL32EX400) which I really like the look of, I'm guessing that's a VA as the blacks look amazing, and I'm using a cheapy 18.5" monitor (Asus VS197T-P) which I have no idea what panel that is.

I think I chose right. I don't care about the viewing angle as I'm always sat right in front of it. I'll update monday and let you know how it is.

JT! Wrote:When I use HDMI to connect to two different LED tvs text looks terrible. I recently switched from HDMI to VGA and the differnce was outstanding. I'm pretty sure this is down to the TV not having a setting to change to to "PC input", but I have to know if other people have this issue when using monitors and HDMI.

It shouldn't happen with monitors but I can see it happening with HDTVs. HDTVs have scaling filters designed to make movies look better which are turned on all the time. They tend to fuck with text. If your HDTV doesn't have a PC mode like you said VGA is likely your only hope as they usually leave it off on VGA input.

JT! Wrote:2. How important is the response time of pixels. 6ms v 2ms. I really hate judder when watching movies, but to the best of my knowledge only a 120htz tv is going to to help with that, or will a faster response time help? I was looking at a "super smooth" TV in walmart a few weeks back the image look amazing. Almost looked like I was watching a movie at 120fps.

Response times have absolutely nothing to do with motion judder. High response times cause the "ghosting effect". The only way to reduce juddering is to increase the framerate. Which requires motion interpolation algorithms. Some HDTVs have this software built in but you can get it as a plugin for PC media players too. Though they're generally not as good. The max framerate that can be achieved is capped by your panels refresh rate.

Funny thing is ghosting doesn't bother me at all in video games. In bothers me in web browsing though. I don't notice it in movies either but I think that's because of the motion blur built into the images/frames themselves which help mask it.

JT! Wrote:Yeah I think we came to the conclusion that my 26" TV I'm currently using is a ISP panel. The other TV is an older sony bravia (KDL32EX400) which I really like the look of, I'm guessing that's a VA as the blacks look amazing

Yes.

Your 26" is likely using eIPS and the sony bravia lineup as far as I know always uses SPVA panels these days.

JT! Wrote:I'm using a cheapy 18.5" monitor (Asus VS197T-P) which I have no idea what panel that is.

TN

Too bad you made your choice before I could chime in and copy/paste some of the info. I recently wrote advising someone else on selecting a monitor (including a list of good choices in the $150-250 budget range).

"Normally if given a choice between doing something and nothing, I’d choose to do nothing. But I would do something if it helps someone else do nothing. I’d work all night if it meant nothing got done."
-Ron Swanson

"I shall be a good politician, even if it kills me. Or if it kills anyone else for that matter. "
-Mark Antony

I'm still happy with my choice even after the info provided, providing the ghosting isn't an issue. I don't really notice a difference over the ISP and TN panels I have now. But maybe that's just because I've never use a monitor with really low response times and I'm just ignorant on the subject... same goes with input lag.

Oh and also with the HDMI input from my computer into the sony TV, it does give me an option to set it to full pixel, however the text still looks terrible... but I did not alter the sharpening which I know can have an effect. I'll have to play about with it when the TV comes back into cables reach (wife moved it out to the living room, and when I say "wife" I mean me, and now she wants it back in the bedroom *urgh*).